


and the house was filled

by iwritesometimes



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 17:30:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10541181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwritesometimes/pseuds/iwritesometimes
Summary: Baze has been gone from home too long for Chirrut's liking, and they're both a little worse for wear. But those rough edges can be smoothed away, with a little care.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emerald Embers (emeraldembers)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldembers/gifts).



_Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume._  
_\--The Gospel of John, chapter 12, verse 3 (NIV)_

Light slanted gold through the veil of dust suspended in the air inside the bombed-out shell of the old congregants’ hall. The cavernous space, now only three walls and part of a fourth, once anchored the oldest portion of the Jedha City temple, providing the largest gathering place for the city’s inhabitants to hear speeches, see plays, meet friends and neighbors, and renew their devotion and connection to the Force. Since the Imperial occupation, it had become an open-air soup kitchen and sometimes hospital, when the weather held dry and mild and the wind didn’t blow too much sand through the gaping windows. The ragged remaining teeth of shattered glass - real glass, faintly quartz-pink, from a time predating transparisteel, when windows on Jedha were still forged from the desert sand - made the breeze whistle faintly, mournfully, when it was quiet enough, but it rarely was.

At the moment, for instance, the hall shimmered with the low, worried voices of hundreds of people, sheltering from the latest displacement by Imperial troops cordoning off another neighborhood for demolition. Dozens stood in snaking lines to receive housing reassignments from the harried-looking city administrators arranged on the dais, and the familiar black-and-red robed figures who were no longer called Guardians threaded in and out of the crowds, pressing glazed cups of tea into cold and shaking hands, soothing the crying with a touch and a quiet word. Cots and benches for the sick and infirm to rest while they waited lined the edges of the hall, and from person to person ran whispers of fear, of weariness, of anger. Of hopelessness.

The sea of bodies near one of the open, arched entrances at the back of the hall momentarily parted for the broad, grim-faced man who stood a head taller than most everyone else in the room, silently imposing. But most everyone here knew him, knew he only looked intimidating, and as he passed easily through the shifting crowd, hands reached out to him, familiar soft greetings in most every Jedha dialect; he squeezed their fingers in his own, large and rough and bound with dusty gauze, made quiet replies, shaking his shaggy head in response to questions. He looked tired and heavy, his clothes and his long, tangled black hair made yellowish from the sandy desert wind. All the while he spoke with his neighbors and friendly strangers, his dark eyes roved the faces around him, picking out the figures in black, looking intently for one in particular.

There was a tug at his sleeve; he looked down into the familiar old lined face of a woman who ran a small nearby cafe, and who, at the moment, was laden down with covered baskets smelling of steamed buns, which she was handing around to anyone who looked in need of one. She smiled at him. “Welcome back, boy. It’s about time.”

He smiled tiredly at her. “Hello, Auntie Binna. How’s the shop?”

“Fine, fine. Have a bun.” She pulled back the cloth on her basket to pick one out for him, but he gestured her a gentle refusal.

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry. I’m looking for--”

“I know you are. He’s over there,” she nodded toward the far right corner of the hall as she withdrew two buns wrapped in paper and held them out to him. “And if you don’t want yours, give it to him. He’s been worried half to death over you, you know.”

Guilt flitted over his face, deepening the frown line between his brows. “I know,” he said quietly, his eyes going to where she’d pointed. He couldn’t see the familiar dark, close-shorn head, but he believed she knew what she was talking about. He sketched a bow to her, all he could manage in the close space. “Thank you, ma’am.” She nodded to him, and he went off in the right direction, holding the redolent food close to his chest to keep it safe from dropping, craning over the crowd to try to catch a glimpse of--

There. There was the beloved figure, leaning into his staff over a cot where a veiled woman clutched her baby to her chest; his voice was not audible from here, but he could imagine it, low and soothing and wry, and his heart sped, throat tightening with a sudden rush of affection and pent-up loneliness. He shouldered through the remaining people a little faster.

As he neared, the woman turned her head and saw him coming. “Baze Malbus,” she said, in a voice of quiet surprise, and the man leaning over her stiffened, straightened, wheeled around in shock. His blankly stunned expression was dawning into a smile, and Baze was reaching out for him as he closed the last two meters in two strides, forgetting one hand was still full of food.

“Baze?” Chirrut Îmwe said, immediately muffled into Baze’s chest, his arms going around him instantly, tremblingly tight. “Baze,” he repeated, and Baze pressed his face into Chirrut’s crown and inhaled deeply, the familiar smell of him making his heart race, making him want to burst into tears.

It was a longer moment than perhaps was proper before they could make themselves let go, take a step apart, Baze just looking at him, Chirrut’s hands framing his face, fingers pressing into the well-loved planes and angles of it and taking stock of a few new scars. Both of them hungrily drinking in the first sight of the other that either had had in months. “You. You didn’t tell me you were on your way home,” Chirrut said, in a rough, quiet whisper.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Baze replied, leaning in to press his forehead to Chirrut’s, just for a moment. He took and let out a shaky breath. “I found a skip coming back to the city, but had to get on it immediately. I didn’t have time to message.”

Chirrut huffed a laugh. “Don’t apologize. You’re here.” His grin grew, broad, so familiar it twisted Baze’s heart in his chest. “You’re _here_.”

“I’m here,” Baze replied. Suddenly he remembered he was holding the two buns, and laughed at himself. “Here,” he said softly, holding them out to Chirrut. “Aunt Binna wanted to feed us, but I’m not hungry.” Not for food, anyway; at the moment, all he wanted was to sit and stare at Chirrut.

Chirrut took the food, sniffing to find out what it was and smiling anew. “You’re here _and_ you’ve brought lunch. I knew there was a reason I love you.”

Baze flushed happily; Chirrut seemed to know without being able to see him (because it was Chirrut; of _course_ he did), and he patted Baze’s stubbled cheek delightedly. His hand lingered there a moment, thumb tracing over his cheekbone, his cheeks pink and expression a little overwhelmed. Baze leaned into the touch, almost turned his head to kiss his palm, but after a moment Chirrut blinked, seeming to come back to himself a little, and dropped his hand to turn back to the woman sitting behind him. She had politely turned her eyes away from them, giving them a moment’s privacy; she was speaking softly to the sleeping baby in her arms, and she looked up at Chirrut as he stepped closer to her and held out one of the two buns to her.

“Here. You can have my ridiculous husband’s share, since he says he isn’t hungry,” he told her. She took it, eyes narrowing in a grateful smile.

“Thank you,” she told them both, looking from Chirrut to Baze. “It’s good to see you again, Baze. You’ve been missed.”

Baze’s blush deepened, and he ducked his head, grateful, embarrassed. Mostly just...too full of happiness to have Chirrut once again warm at his side to find the right words to say. “Thank you, Little Sister,” he told her sincerely. “I hope your family is well?” he said, but carefully, because in these times, that assumption was no longer safe.

However, the young woman, whose name was Indah, had good news of her family’s health, at least, though of course, they, like everyone else here, had recently had to vacate their home. Baze could feel Chirrut growing more and more tense with anger beside him as she related details of her family’s eviction, her husband’s scramble to acquire new work permits under the latest draconian regulations, her grandparents’ grief at losing their house. Baze edged a little closer to him, until their shoulders bumped; he felt Chirrut take and release a deep breath, steadying himself, so that when he spoke to give Indah comfort and advice on who to talk to regarding the work permits, his tone was gentle and reassuring. Only Baze could have heard the simmering rage in the bottom notes of his voice.

Presently, Indah’s husband returned with their new housing assignment, and Chirrut and Baze said their goodbyes. Chirrut took Baze by the hand and drew him off through the hall, skirting the crowd and ducking into one of the quiet prayer alcoves behind the dais; the shrine plinth at the back of the small space was long since bereft of its kyber crystal, the barren, ragged stone scar where it had once grown now filled haphazardly with half-melted, unlit candles and a cold bowl of incense ash. When they were safely out of sight of the milling mass of people outside, Chirrut crowded immediately into Baze’s space, pressing him back into the wall and burying his face in Baze’s chest. He was trembling again, this time with rage, and his breath came heavy and ragged as his fists balled bloodless in the front of Baze’s dusty shirt.

Baze held him, his joy and his grief mingling. It had become a familiar sensation over the last ten years of Imperial occupation. Every day was an emotionally grinding cycle of anger and fear and loss, punctuated by spikes of happiness, of hope. Those highs, however, were becoming ever more occasional, and while Baze had learned years ago to treasure happy moments in the midst of turmoil, it was sometimes hard to remember to look for the sun in the gloomy landscape of their world, now.

When he was with Chirrut, though, he never had to look for light and hope. Chirrut carried it with him, a walking beacon of the city’s spirit, and no matter how far Baze wandered in his new and harrowing line of work, Chirrut remained a constant light leading him home. Even when that light was more the burn of fury than a soft glow of happiness.

“You’ve been gone too long,” Chirrut said into Baze’s collarbone, a hard edge of resentment in his voice that twisted in Baze’s stomach.

“I didn’t mean to,” Baze said weakly in his own defense; he knew as he said it he would have been better off saying nothing at all. Chirrut gave him a short, sharp shove against the wall, knocking his breath momentarily from his lungs.

“You were away for months, Baze,” he said, raising his face and pinning him with his milky eyes, unmoving, unblinking, somehow staring into him without sight. Baze’s jaw clenched as his throat tightened again. “Months. I thought some nights that I’d never--”

“You knew I would come home,” Baze admonished him roughly, voice sharper than he meant it to be. “I was always coming home to you.”

“Were you?” Chirrut said, something dark and ugly seeming flash in his expression. “I think maybe you like it out there, all on your own. Far away from this. From what we’re supposed to be doing here.”

Baze sucked in a sharp breath, guilt and anger flaring; he tried to swallow them back. This was Chirrut’s hurt speaking, his fear and loneliness; it wasn’t just Indah’s family’s trouble, or even the pain and anguish of everyone here today. It was the collective, oppressive weight of this work, day in and day out - not only over the last few months, but over the last decade. Baze realized Chirrut had been hiding it, these months he was away, bottling it up instead of letting it show in their frequent but irregular calls. He’d been hiding this from Baze, probably to stop Baze worrying so much, and Baze’s guilt grew leaden in the center of him. He hadn’t known. How had he not known?

He wrapped his arms tighter around Chirrut, hugging him closer, suffocatingly close; for a moment Chirrut stiffened against him, like he was going to pull away, and then he went boneless, instead, heavy in Baze’s arms, body shaking with a handful of silent sobs. Baze held him, hiding his face in the crook of Chirrut’s neck, until Chirrut stilled, and then kept holding him for a long few moments afterward.

Finally he whispered, “I’m sorry. I won’t go away so long again.”

Chirrut sighed, then, after a few more seconds, pulled away. He slid his hands up Baze’s chest and out over his shoulders, squeezing them, taking stock of Baze in silence as he breathed, deep, even, trying to return himself to equilibrium. He drew his palms down Baze’s arms to his bandaged hands, frown darkening his face as he felt them. He squeezed Baze’s fingers lightly, and Baze flinched.

“What have you done to your hands?”

Baze grunted quietly. “It’s been a long few months,” he said quietly, not especially wanting to get into the gory details, just now. He could see the dissatisfaction and worry on Chirrut’s face, but before he could say anything else, Chirrut steered him to sit on one of the carved-out benches to one side of the alcove.

“Wait here,” he said, and was gone before Baze could object. Baze leaned back against the rough wall, cold even through his clothes, and closed his eyes a moment. The familiar smoky sweetness of old incense and the texture of the sandstone against his skin relaxed him in a way he hadn’t relaxed since he’d left to go halfway around the moon to kill a man. In the end, he’d killed four, half-starved to death in the desert, spent time scratching out an existence in a quarry as he tried to get close to one of his marks, and missed Chirrut every day, feeling him like a phantom limb every time he lay down to sleep, every time he saw the sunrise break like ravaging fire over the desert. Having him gone again even for a few more minutes was painful, and the moment he heard the scuff of Chirrut’s boots on the stone, Baze raised his head and opened his eyes, heart racing again.

Chirrut carried a basin of water in one hand and a steaming cup in the other, a small sack of something or other tucked into his belt. “Here,” he said, and held out the tea to Baze as he set the basin on the floor. He didn’t smile, but the corners of his eyes creased a little, fondness softening his face, and Baze let out a sigh of relief, knowing Chirrut had forgiven him. He’d known Chirrut would, because Chirrut always did. But he had always hated the tension in between the anger and the absolution.

He took the tea, wrapped his cold fingers around it and breathed deep of the familiar smell, eyes closing in bliss. It was cheap tea, all most anyone in NiJedha could get nowadays, and were grateful to get that, but it was what Baze and Chirrut had been raised on, at the temple, and the scent of it was like a favorite blanket wrapping around Baze’s insides. He opened his eyes to see Chirrut smiling again, amused, and he smiled back, reaching out one hand to bunch in the front of Chirrut’s robes and tug him down. Chirrut let himself be pulled into the kiss, still smiling as his mouth met Baze’s, and though Baze’s lips were dusty and Chirrut’s mouth tasted of the bun he’d just eaten, Baze shuddered in delight, his heart finally, finally feeling settled again. Chirrut’s huff of a laugh was hot against his mouth, and he leaned further in, deepened the kiss, pushed his fingers into Baze’s hair and curled them there greedily, tipping Baze’s head back to get a better angle on him.

Baze was just starting to contemplate setting his tea aside to free up his other hand and pull Chirrut closer when Chirrut made a soft sound and broke the kiss, pulling away a little. Baze was deeply gratified to see Chirrut’s breathing gone fast and his eyes heavy-lidded, before Chirrut shook himself a little and made himself take a step back.

“Stop distracting me,” he said briskly, as if he hadn’t been the one to intensify the kiss. Baze grinned harder and Chirrut tsked at him. “Shut up,” he said, and sat crosslegged before Baze in the smooth-worn depression in the floor where a thousand years of meditations had once been observed before the kyber.

“What are you doing?” Baze asked him as he picked his tea back up and blew across it to take a sip - still too hot, a comforting and familiar burn across his tongue. Chirrut didn’t answer, just took hold of Baze’s free hand and began tearing loose the gauze wrapped around it. Baze hummed and leaned back against the wall and sipped his tea. And watched. Chirrut silently unwound the bandaging from Baze’s hand as they settled into companionable quiet, the murmur of voices from the main hall becoming like the background noise of desert wind that had kept Baze company for so many months.

When Baze’s hand was bare, Chirrut ran his fingers over it, feeling the calluses and rough, splitting patches of skin - testament to swinging a hammer in a quarry, to the burns from the rifle he’d overheated in a firefight two weeks ago, and to months without balm or bacta to repair any of the damage. Chirrut frowned over the roughness, his own work-hardened but healthy fingertips so light as to be almost painful on Baze’s peeling knuckles and palms. Chirrut sighed softly through his nose and pulled the little bag from his belt, upending a small collection of items into his lap: Baze recognized a fresh roll of gauze, a jar of medicinal salve, a cake of something that was probably soap, and a small square of old cloth, as well as a pair of vials of something he couldn’t identify. Chirrut wet the cloth in the basin and rubbed it into the bar of soap, then held the bowl up for Baze to dip his hand into the water as well; it was pleasantly cool, soothing on his dry, dusty skin. Setting it aside, Chirrut took Baze’s hand in his again and began to rub the soapy cloth over his skin in small circles, just enough pressure to cleanse, careful around the spots that made Baze flinch the most. He was fleetingly glad Chirrut couldn’t see his face, at least, and his frown of discomfort as the sand and dirt caked into the lines of his hand came clean.

As he worked the cloth down each of Baze’s fingers individually, Chirrut took a breath to speak; Baze waited as Chirrut frowned a little, seeming to consider several different things to say, before finally choosing simply, “Tell me.”

Baze watched Chirrut continue to work, wet his own hands in the basin to slide his fingers over Baze’s skin, rinse it clean. After another few seconds, he took a deep breath of his own, and did as Chirrut asked. He told him of the last few months in complete but not exhaustive detail as Chirrut unbound his other hand and proceeded to wash it clean, as well, carefully running the cloth along Baze’s cuticles and under his short, cracked nails to free up the dirt there as Baze related his time in the quarry, rinsing the soap away with gentle hands as Baze described the people he had been sent to kill, holding up the basin for Baze to soak his hands for a long moment while Baze carefully chose the right words to talk about the firefight, not censoring the danger - because Chirrut would know he had - but mentioning only the events that occurred, omitting mention of his own state of mind. As he spoke, as his hands cooled in the water and some of the pain in them drained away while his thirsty skin drank up the moisture, he felt tension in his shoulders starting to bleed out, little by little. His breathing slowed a little, voice settling into a comfortable murmur by the time he got to the part where he suddenly and fortunately found a ship returning to Jedha City, fully a week before he expected to find passage home.

He hummed as his words ran down, as Chirrut lowered the basin and patted Baze’s hands dry with the clean inside edge of his robe. Chirrut’s eyes flicked up toward his face as he opened the little jar of balm and dipped some out, warming it between his fingers. “You did well,” he said, soft and warm, and Baze felt a knot he hadn’t even been aware of, deep between his shoulderblades, suddenly release. Chirrut took hold of his right hand and began to work the salve into his damp skin, fingertips moving again in slow circles, starting with the roughest patches and working out to Baze’s knuckles, the heel of his hand, where he pressed in a little more, working in widening spirals to ease tension out of the muscle there.

“I earned triple what I expected to,” Baze said, surprised to hear his words running together a little, finding every part of him relaxing, including his tongue. He swallowed, working his mouth a moment, before he continued, more clearly. “Enough to buy new clothes for the children, and food for two months.”

Chirrut smiled, curling both hands around the one of Baze’s, so he could slide his fingers from Baze’s wrist, down to his fingertips, slow and even pressure, over and over, long, stroking movements that gently popped the fine bones in Baze’s wrist and hands. “Father Aran will be pleased to hear that,” he said, referring to the nominal chief Guardian, now that they were no longer Guardians and no longer had a chief or any official hierarchy. “I’m just. Pleased you’re home again. With me.” Chirrut’s smile twisted wry, embarrassed at his own selfishness, but unable not to be honest about it. “I. I apologize. For what I said. I know you...you’ll always come home. I shouldn’t have--”

Baze frowned, reached out with the hand not currently being gentled into tingling looseness between Chirrut’s clever fingers, curled his palm over the nape of Chirrut’s neck and squeezed gently. He felt Chirrut shiver, hummed softly at him. “I worried you,” he said. “I didn’t...realize how much.”

Chirrut sighed, working the last of the salve on his fingers into Baze’s nails, softening them and the rough skin around them. “It isn’t an excuse,” he said. “But. Yes. I didn’t realize how much I would worry, either, until you weren’t here for weeks on end.” He released Baze’s fingers and flicked open one of the little vials in his lap; feeling out the split skin on Baze’s knuckles and around his nails, he carefully dripped a little of the green liquid onto each spot, rubbing it in. It stung at first, and then felt warm, and it smelled pretty much the way it looked, like plants and growing things, like the way a leaf smells when crushed between the fingers. Baze recognized it, then, as some distillation of a medicinal herb they grew in the temple gardens, something not quite as miraculous as bacta, but still very effective. He could practically feel the cuts and burns on his hand beginning to knit; they would be much less inflamed by morning, properly healed in a day or two.

Baze leaned over and kissed Chirrut’s forehead. “I really am sorry for worrying you,” he whispered against Chirrut’s hairline. “I missed you too. Like a part of me was gone. I do every time I leave.”

Chirrut’s fingers stilled, and he tipped up his face to nuzzle a kiss against the corner of Baze’s mouth. “I know. You’re home now. And whole. For the most part - your hands are _atrocious_ , of course.”

Baze laughed, allowed Chirrut to retrieve his other hand, leaning back and going lax against the wall, again, watching him through eyes heavy-lidded and relaxed. They lapsed into silence again as Chirrut began on Baze’s left hand, the amber-colored salve melting against Baze’s callused skin with a faintly sweet, nutty smell that mixed with the echo of incense in the air, hypnotic, almost. Chirrut’s dark head bent over Baze’s hand, the sweep of his eyelashes against his high cheekbones - all so dear and so missed for so long - filled Baze with longing, made him want to reach out, pull Chirrut close again, put his softer hands to Chirrut’s skin and slide them inside his robes. His heart ached sharply, want welling in him, quickening his breath. Chirrut smiled knowingly; of course he could hear it, feel Baze’s pulse quickening under his fingertips as he kneaded at Baze’s hand, rubbing his thumbs down over each bone individually. He flexed the stiffness out of the wrist and gently, warmly chafed his hand between his two palms, til Baze felt warm all over, just from the warmth spreading to the tips of his fingers.

After he’d dripped more of the green tincture into his cuts and burns, he settled both of Baze’s hands flat on Baze’s own thighs and opened up the other vial, full of a golden oil. The moment he wet his own fingertips with it, the rich vanilla and spice scent of it burst in Baze’s nose, and he breathed deep, frowning in recognition.

“Chirrut, is that anointing oil?” he said, in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. Chirrut didn’t even have the grace to look sheepish about it. He only grinned and began circling his oil-slick fingertips over Baze’s fingernails, working the oil into his cuticles.

“They won’t miss this one dram of it,” he reasoned, which was probably true, but entirely beside the point. Baze huffed out an amused half-laugh, half-sigh.

“One of these days,” he intoned, in a voice he’d perfected the use of over the past twenty-odd years, “you’re really going to get us in trouble, Chirrut Îmwe.”

“Only if you get us caught, Baze Malbus,” Chirrut chastised, “so hold still so I can rub this all in, and no one will ever know.” His smile crawled a little further over his face, curving wickedly. “This isn’t the first time we’ve misused a bit of anointing oil,” he reminded Baze in an undertone. “I rubbed it in _very_ well that time, too, if you’ll recall.”

Baze’s breath caught, head spinning a little as the smell of the oil and the lilt of Chirrut’s voice dredged up a whole other memory that had heat spreading from Baze’s ears down the back of his neck, prickly. “My clothes smelled of vanilla for a week,” he protested, very weakly. Chirrut hummed, pleased - both with Baze’s memory and, apparently, with his work on Baze’s hands, as he took them in both of his, turning them over to cup them, palm up, and bending to press a kiss to the well of each, lips warm and curving still in a smile.

“And now they shall, again,” he said softly, sliding his thumbs over the places he’d just kissed. He gently squeezed Baze’s hands, letting them go only to dress them lightly in fresh gauze, just enough to cover the worst of the burns again. Then he stopped up the vials and gathered all his supplies into his little bag, again; Baze stood and helped him rise effortlessly to his feet. As he did, Chirrut winced a little bit. Baze frowned, steadied him, but Chirrut waved him off.

“Weary feet are the first sign of sainthood,” he said, some musty proverb Baze had never heard before; he’d probably been storing it up for some time. Baze gave him an unconvinced look, unfortunately lost on Chirrut, but Chirrut must have interpreted his lack of response correctly. He batted Baze’s chest and beckoned him to come along. “There’s still work to do before we can go home,” he said gently, and slipped out of the alcove, trusting (correctly) that Baze would follow.

***

“Home” these days was a closet of a room in an ancient tenement, long enough for a bed at one end and a hotplate and sink at the other, about two not-very-long strides apart. But it smelled familiar, of tea and cleaning solution and Chirrut; the moment they stepped inside and Chirrut raised the lights, golden, Baze almost burst into tears for having missed their little sanctuary, for being back where he felt safe, where Chirrut’s presence filled the space, as he had been filling the spaces they had inhabited together ever since they were children. Baze had always felt that anywhere where Chirrut was not could never be anything but empty, no matter how many other people filled it. He had seldom been alone, the last few months, but he had felt so powerfully lonely almost every day of his absence from this room and this place that now it was like he was catching his breath for the first time in a long, long time.

He activated the door lock behind him and immediately felt a hundred pounds lighter, slumping back against the door and simply watching Chirrut move easily, comfortably around the tiny space. Chirrut set the box of their dinner onto the hotplate and leaned his staff against the wall next to it; he knew this small space, and the alley that led to their door, and most of the street beyond that, by memory and sense alone, and he moved around the small table and chairs from one end of the room to the other as easily and assuredly as if he could still see. Sinking to the bed with a sigh, he shrugged off his robe from his shoulders, tipping his head back and forth to stretch out his neck, and began wearily to unzip and tug off his boots.

Baze stepped out of his own boots and crossed to him, then, put his hands over Chirrut’s, stalling them. Chirrut blinked up at him in surprise.

“Let me,” Baze said quietly, which made Chirrut blink again in surprise.

“I’m not _that_ tired, Baze,” he laughed, although the relative slowness of his words gave the lie to that.

“I know,” Baze replied, kneeling on the floor and raising first one, then the other, of Chirrut’s feet, unzipping him out of his boots and setting them aside, out of the way, so Chirrut would be sure not to trip on them as he walked around. Chirrut leaned back on his elbows with a sigh of relief, and made a soft, pleasured sound when Baze took hold of one of his feet, stripped it bare, and rotated it slowly at the ankle, sliding his thumb into the arch with firm, even pressure.

“Force. That’s...lovely, Baze,” Chirrut said, in obvious bliss. He flapped a hand weakly at him. “But. You’re tired. You just got back, for gods’ sakes. You don’t need to do that now.” Chirrut had long loved having his feet rubbed, and Baze was usually more than happy to oblige him; it was such a small gesture in return for all the dozens of things Chirrut did for him, quietly and often without Baze asking or even noticing until well after the fact. Besides, it made Chirrut feel good, which was Baze Malbus’ primary purpose in life.

“Hush,” Baze commanded him, gentle and gruff, then repeated, “Let me.” He worked his thumb in long upward strokes from Chirrut’s heel to the ball of his foot, taking him in both hands to put both thumbs into the action, stroking up and up and up, over and over. Chirrut sank a little further into the mattress with every passing minute, until he shuddered and slid completely down to his back, spread-eagle on their bed, breath hitching his chest a little more rapidly than normal. Baze smiled privately, crookedly, and, once he was sure he’d worked the worst of the ache out of Chirrut’s right foot, switched to his left, to repeat the process. Chirrut’s feet were nearly as callused as his hands, rougher, less attended-to in the busyness of his life, so taken up with service to others. Baze had the strangest, strongest swell of fondness for them, suddenly - these feet that had walked every inch of Jedha City with him, that had taught Baze everything he knew of fighting grace, that had danced on rooftops with him in the twilight when the city had still known peace. It was foolishness, he knew, this frivolous upswell of emotion; it was just that he was tired, and he’d just come back from a hellish job half a world away, and he was just grateful to Chirrut and a bit hard up for sex after six months of celibacy. He knew that. Hormones and exhaustion, that’s all this was.

And yet, when Chirrut levered himself back up on his elbow and smiled down at him, looking positively drunk with the simple pleasure of Baze’s massaging hands on his feet, Baze knew it wasn’t just that. With Chirrut, nothing was ever simple or straightforward, and gods, was Baze ever grateful for that.

“You’re very good at that, Master Malbus,” Chirrut told him, blissed out.

Baze gave his left foot a fond squeeze and moved it out of his lap. “Lie back,” he said, and, when Chirrut complied (so easy and without a moment’s hesitation, Baze noted with a thrill), Baze stood and leaned over him, kissing him for a long, suspended moment. Chirrut’s hands went for his hair, his clothes, but Baze pulled away, smiling down at him. “Stay right there,” he said, straightening and moving to the sink.

He could not perfectly recreate Chirrut’s collection of items in the temple; he had no anointing oil, more was the pity, and the balm they kept around the house for dry skin was plainer, without much scent. But Baze was determined; he filled a shallow bowl with hot water and soap shavings and crushed leaves of the same herb that was even now healing his hands, which Chirrut kept next to the hotplate in case of burns. (A real danger, whenever Chirrut went near the hotplate.) This bowl he set next to the bed and placed Chirrut’s feet into; Chirrut hissed quietly as his toes touched the heat, but then he relaxed and slid them further in, acclimating quickly. Baze gathered up the dry-skin salve and the file from his shaving bag and returned to sit cross-legged in front of Chirrut once more, rolling Chirrut’s pant legs up, cuffing them beneath his knees. He trailed his fingertips down his calves, eliciting a sigh from up on the bed, and, smiling, leaned in to kiss Chirrut’s shin.

“Baze,” Chirrut’s voice came floating down to him. Baze hummed in acknowledgment. “You are going to spoil me, and I will demand this extravagance in the future. This is a real danger you are running, right now.”

Baze grinned, rubbing his stubbly cheek against Chirrut’s leg, then drawing back to push up his own sleeves and get his hands into the hot water to trail his fingers down the fine bones of Chirrut’s feet, sluice water over his ankles, clasping his heated hands over them and rubbing in circles. He felt the shivers run up Chirrut’s body even from here. “Good,” he said with finality. “I like to know I’m doing something useful.”

Chirrut grunted. “Oh. You are the most useful person alive right now. I’m just warning you I intend to take shameful advantage of you, henceforth.”

“How is that different from what you do now, I wonder?” Baze slid his hands up the backs of Chirrut’s legs, squeezing his calves as he went.

Chirrut’s silence was offended, and Baze laughed. “If what you were doing just now didn’t feel so good, Baze Malbus, I would kick you.”

“Also something you have done about twelve hundred times in my life,” Baze replied, unconcerned. He drew Chirrut’s left foot from the steaming water and propped it against his knee, carefully setting the file against each nail and shaping off the sharp edges, as he trailed the fingertips of his other hand periodically up and down Chirrut’s leg, absently reveling in getting to touch and enjoy Chirrut’s body again.

“Always for your own good, you understand.”

“Oh, of course.” Baze smiled, turning the metal file and dragging the cool edge of it down Chirrut’s instep, making him curl his toes reflexively.

“Ah! No tickling!”

Baze chuckled, lowered that foot back into the water and took the other onto his other knee, mindless of the water streaming onto his pants. He didn’t intend to be in these clothes very much longer. The file rasped quietly against water-softened nail, Baze’s hands as precise in this pursuit as in the disassembly and cleaning of his guns. He listened, too, for Chirrut’s quickened breathing, again, pleased to hear occasional soft, happy sounds from him, gratified to be doing well. Baze set the file aside when he was pleased with how Chirrut’s toes all neatly matched, cupping his hands around Chirrut’s foot and bending over it to press a kiss to the top of it. He smelled of green herbs and soap, and Baze hummed, dragging his lips up over his water-warmed skin, tasting his ankle, setting his teeth gently to the thin skin over bone.

“Ah!” Chirrut breathed shakily. Baze closed his eyes, turning his head to rub his cheek against Chirrut’s foot, beard and stubble sounding much like the file against his skin, and Baze heard and felt Chirrut shifting on the bed; sitting up, as it turned out, for the next thing he felt was Chirrut’s hands in his hair, the press of Chirrut’s face to his crown, his breath quick and deep against it. “Baze,” he said, voice sounding a little ragged. “Please. Please come to bed. I need you.”

Baze’s body jolted with heat, fast-blooming in the pit of his stomach, and in an instant he felt every moment of every month he had been gone, pressing again on his lungs, squeezing the breath out of him, his every atom screaming in need of Chirrut. Baze lifted his head, caught Chirrut’s mouth with his own, his hands shaking as he reached up, clasped at Chirrut’s bare shoulder and the nape of his neck. He pressed upward, clumsily getting his feet under him; he jostled the bowl as he went, water sloshing over the sides and into the floor. He couldn’t possibly care less. The only important thing in this world was getting onto the bed with Chirrut, was getting his hands on Chirrut’s naked, warm skin, was getting his own dusty, road-worn clothes off himself as quickly as possible, so their skin could touch again. Chirrut went easily down on his back beneath Baze, opened his mouth to Baze’s kisses and curled his fists in Baze’s hair; his knees came up around Baze’s hips, his still-damp feet dragging up the backs of Baze’s calves and thighs, toes digging in, as Baze struggled to kick his trousers free of his legs, divest them both of their underclothes. But Chirrut would not release him from his full-body clinging grip, needy and tight and shaking once again, and Baze found he couldn’t stop kissing Chirrut long enough, either, to get fully naked.

“Baze,” Chirrut breathed into his mouth, locking his legs around Baze’s ample hips and rolling up against him, wavelike and perfect. “Fuck, Baze. Missed this. Dreamed this every night you were away.”

Baze set his mouth, open and hot, to the hollow of Chirrut’s throat, sliding his tongue into the dip of it, and Chirrut moaned and curled his fingers around Baze’s ears. Baze thrust against him in a slow roll, less like a graceful wave and more like a pragmatic motion intended to tease and relieve, at once. Chirrut’s thighs squeezed him deliciously. Baze growled softly, pressing his face into Chirrut’s neck and thrusting against him again, achingly slow.

“I didn’t dream,” he huffed, curling his hand, smelling strongly of vanilla, around the back of Chirrut’s neck, thumb tucked into the warm divot behind his ear, so that all Baze could smell was Chirrut and the oil he’d anointed him with. “When I’m away from you, I don’t sleep well enough to dream.”

Chirrut gasped and hitched up against him a little harder, his rhythm faltering a little, needy and uneven. “Don’t...don’t go away again,” he panted, moving one hand from Baze’s hair to his face, feeling his features with trembling fingers. Baze kissed his palm, nuzzled into it, panting against the heel of Chirrut’s hand, letting him see with his fingertips the frown of concentration and pleasure creasing his brow.

“Where you go, I go,” Baze swore, as he couldn’t help but speed his dragging thrusts, both of them chasing the abrupt and quick end, wound too tightly, too lonely for each other, for it to be otherwise. Chirrut’s hand in his hair twisted painfully tight, and he cried out, jerking against Baze, his legs only tightening around him as he curled ever tighter against Baze, like he was trying to fuse their bodies together by sheer force of will.

Baze felt his control shatter, pressed his cock desperately against Chirrut once, twice more, and came, melting into shudders and desperate gasps for air, even as he gathered Chirrut as close as he could, hugging him tightly to himself, burrowing against him, intent on never letting him go again, so long as he could help it.

They were a long time, panting and clinging to each other, unmoving, but after a while, Baze felt Chirrut’s fingertips moving over his face once more, softer, gentle, almost caressing, but with purpose. He smoothed his thumb over the knot between Baze’s eyebrows, retraced those new scars he had found earlier, ghosted his fingertips over every familiar line and wrinkle, the ugly raised mark that dominated one side of his face - souvenir of the same battle that had left Chirrut blind. Just one of so many shared bits of their history, like those walks together, those dances. To Baze’s mind, just another proof that they were tied irretrievably together, no matter how far away he might temporarily roam.

“All to your liking?” he whispered, kissing Chirrut’s wrist.

Chirrut hummed. “Devastatingly handsome as ever, and mine, all mine.” He was smiling; Baze could hear it, not even needing to raise his eyes and look.

“All yours,” Baze promised him, seeking out Chirrut’s hand with his own and knotting their fingers together, despite the gauze wrapped around his palm. The pain in his hands had all but faded completely, now, and the empty loneliness inside him had been chased out with golden light and vanilla-scented oil. “All yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> Exchange gift for emeraldembers in the "i don't need luck i have the 2017 spiritassassin fic exchange." Two of the prompts were foot (or hand) worship, and domestic day-in-the-life fic. Smoosh these together and you get something a little like this! Happy exchange, darling, and I truly hope you enjoy!


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